Missouri House budget funds education, cuts blind aid

The Missouri House has passed all 13 bills that make up the state’s budget and sent them to the Senate. The process took longer than expected, because of the large number of Democrats who took issue with cutting funding to blind pensions and for not spending enough on K-through-12 schools.

Sara Lampe of Springfield urged fellow lawmakers to look for other ways to balance the budget besides cutting services. “We could eliminate some of the 700 million a year in tax credits that do not bring jobs to Missouri or do not support social services…we could enact the streamline tax collection to capture the millions in taxes on Internet sales that are already owed to the state but not paid for,” Lampe said.

Other Democrats voiced support for raising taxes, specifically, the state’s cigarette and corporate taxes. But Republicans objected, saying raising taxes would result in less revenue and more job losses. The state budget now goes to the Missouri Senate.